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There’s some things that social media make look far far easier than they prove to be in real life. Such as curled hair using straighteners (Clue’s in the name. Mere mortals can’t make something designed to straighten curlify. Fact) and French manicures that don’t in actual fact look as if you’ve dipped the tips of your fingernails in tippex. Creme Egg Brownies fit into this category. In theory, what is there not to love about them. They celebrate the season of gluttony and the abandonment of any vestiges of the New Year New You healthy eating plans and then raise the bar to the next level. Correct me if I’m wrong (actually don’t because I’m menstrual and don’t take criticism well at the best of times) but I think the Cadbury’s Creme Egg is only big in Britain. Essentially chocolate, filled with icing. In an Egg shape. Who doesn’t like them? No-one. It’s possibly on some dubious ‘Are you British enough?’ type test beloved by the Daily Mail. Setting aside the great Creme Egg debacle of 2015 – What? The chocolate may have changed? Crisis. Let’s panic. Oh they taste exactly the flipping same. Panic over. Yum

I love a Creme Egg. I love that on about Boxing Day someone will post a photo of one on Instagram with a hugely miffed caption like ‘too early *disgruntled emoticon*’. I love them but actually they’re a bit shit. That’s the true British way. We love things which are essentially a bit shit. It is pretty bloody hard to unwrap a Creme Egg. The wrappers are always at least a bit sticky and impossible to remove in one piece. So you end up with a load of tiny bits of foil stuck to your increasingly sticky fingers. About half way through a normal size one you start feeling a bit nauseous. But unlike normal chocolate there is literally no way of leaving a Creme Egg half munched. You can’t put it down as the filling will ooze out everywhere and it’s the stickiest substance known to man, second only to congealed Weetabix. You can’t wrap it back in its wrapper because, as we’ve already established, that is in a hundred tiny slivers of sticky unusable foil. So you eat all of it in sticky mouthfuls then feel a bit sick. The advent of the mini-Creme Egg seemed to solve this but in fact unwrapping those little feckers is even more fiddly and sticky than the normal ones, and because they’re so so tiny you have to do more unwrapping and use a whole packet of wet wipes to de-stickify your fingers mid binge and then your scoffing tastes a bit of wet wipes. Yack.

So, Pinterest and IG are full of Creme Egg Brownie photos. But be warned. They are not as easy to make as it would appear. The first time I made them, and I had taken advice from one of my friends who always has perfect baking results, although they tasted lush there was quite a lot of swearing, mess and reject brownies.

One. It is REALLY BLOODY HARD TO SLICE A CREME EGG IN HALF. The first time I tried it lots broke. Lots didn’t have the white/yolk look. Lots just looked as if they were just a big fat congealed mass of icing. Two. When you put all of the ingredients in the mixer with cocoa powder on the top and then let your 4 year old switch the mixer on (at full speed naturally) the whole kitchen will be coated with a fine dusting of brown powder. Which will stick to all the bloody Creme Egg foil which is lurking around. Also using full size Creme Eggs means that there’s kind of too much Egg to Brownie ratio and each slice was massive.
I’ve tweaked the recipe slightly and realised that if you dip your knife in a jug of hot water straight from the kettle in between each slice of Creme Egg then it will slice easier. I’ve also used mini Creme Eggs.

This is my tried and tested Brownie recipe. Well my current favourite. I only posted a brownie recipe on here for a snickers brownie a while ago but I’ve found they’re nicer if you use some brown sugar and vanilla so this recipe is slightly different.

4 eggs

275g Stork or butter

150g Caster Sugar

225g soft brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

75g cocoa powder

100g self-raising flour

100g milk chocolate chips

Pre-heat the oven to 160c (in my fan oven) and line a baking tin with baking parchment or the silicone liners that all the pound shops have.

Mix all the ingredients together – except for the creme eggs (I do this in the Kitchen Aid mixer but you could do it by hand) and pour into the lined tray and level over.

Bake for 25 minutes and THEN ADD THE CREME EGGS (they’ll burn if you put them in from the start) which you’ve cut in half. Just push them into the hot mixture in whatever pattern you want and then return to the oven for another 10-15 minutes until the brownies are cooked.

Remove from the oven and let the brownies cool in the tray and then cut into squares.

I find that brownies, including these ones, freeze dead well and defrost quickly so usually make enough to eat some and then pop the rest in a container in the freezer.